


One Final Gift

by StormDriver



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: F/M, Miqo'te Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Multi, Patch 5.3: Reflections in Crystal, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25840750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StormDriver/pseuds/StormDriver
Summary: Sometimes, the gifts that are left behind are painful. And sometimes, they're all we can cherish.INCLUDES HEAVY SPOILERS FOR 5.3: Reflections in Crystal
Relationships: Ardbert & Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Ardbert/Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch & Warrior of Light, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 2
Kudos: 24





	One Final Gift

**Author's Note:**

> i cried
> 
> a lot

The mystel dragged her hand over the lumps of dirt, pushing them aside best she could. She’d done most of the hard work already, using a shovel to heave mounds and mounds of soil out of the hole in the ground. But the pile had grown too large and slips of the dirt were starting to fall back in.

Raine stuck the tip of the shovel in the dirt and rested her boot’s sole on the edge of it. She leaned on the shaft and stared down at the hole in the ground, brows furrowed. It was getting closer and closer to sunset. The winds blew strong here in Kholusia, and made it difficult for the girl to keep her balance on top of the hill. 

That small cliffside that hung over the ocean gave a perfect view of the horizon line. Where the earth curved and the ocean vanished from view, and the clouds padded the gleaming sun as it set behind the water’s murky colors. The grass beneath her feet had grown yellow over the years of unending sunlight, but flowers had still managed to spring here. Only here, in this one spot. 

She huffed again and wiped the back of her gloved hand over her forehead. Then winced as the fabric caught on her fresh scar. The girl whimpered and pulled her hand away, gently covering the left side of her face with her palms to ensure nothing else would touch the wound. Though she hated to admit it, she didn’t think it was going to heal. Especially now that it had been a day of intensive healing magic therapy and she still couldn’t see a thing out of her left eye. 

The terrifying image of that warrior had scarred her soul already. To have dragged Ardbert’s axe down her face only added insult to injury. He who would have fought by her side had he possessed a body of his own, and it was his weapon that took away her eye. The thought of it made her heart pound in her chest, and thoughts of vengeance surged in her veins.

_ There’s nothing more to avenge.  _

__ There was nothing else to be done, she was told. Elidibus was put to the sword after all of his misdeeds. The Exarch died for his attempts and now G’raha was back home. Ryne is alone here in Norvrandt, as she could not make the crossing to the Source. And Ardbert…

Raine sat down on another pile of dirt, her legs bent in front of her and a shovel holding up her wrists on its handle. Her armor clanked as she sat down, fabrics rustled as she tipped her head back and looked up at the sky. It was an odd color, blue in the far east skies and slowly bleeding into first a pink, then a yellow color in the west. Stars could be seen faintly, if one squinted. Weak crystals in that azure sky. But crystals she could see, nonetheless.

She sighed and ducked her head. Too many thoughts occupied that space in her mind and she wished to just take a nap. To wake up and hope a lot of this was a dream was hopeful thinking, and therefore, unlikely. She’d lost the Exarch just last night. But it felt bittersweet. Knowing he was content with his death, and that his legacy would live on. That the G’raha Tia of the Eighth Umbral Calamity would not be forgotten, and instead be hailed as the savior of an entire world. The Warrior of Darkness was merely a weapon. It was the Crystal Exarch who wielded her with such brevity and skill, and care at that. He took care of his dear friend, and she was only happy to help him achieve his goals. 

Raine stared at the ground beneath her shoes. The toes of her boots were plated with silver and the leather ran up to her thighs, leaving some of her leg exposed. The chilling winds brushed her skin and made her heart shiver, but she remained placid. Her feet brushed some of the dirt in small motions, as if she were trying to dig through it and find something she had buried here long ago. 

With hardly a warning, something grabbed a hold of her tail. Raine’s green and white eyes dilated and her back arched as she let out a hissing shriek. The shovel smacked against the dirt and Raine’s hands frantically grabbed a hold of her tail, pulling it away from whatever had grabbed a hold of it. Alas, as she pulled her tail close to her chest and looked at the damage that was done, she found her culprit. 

Her heart stopped shivering, beating altogether. She stared at the mammet and it’s similar appearance. It’s small, stubby arms that were clutching the white tip of her feline tail, the small axe that was clinging to its back. Fair skin and dark armor. Blue eyes that seemed to stare directly at her. Like it could see something that she could not.

Raine slowly inhaled through her nose, letting her chest rise. She reached her right hand forward and pried the mammet’s hands off her fur. It was surprisingly strong, for such a little thing. Though that only made too much sense, given who it was made in the image of.

She plopped the small minion on the ground and watched it stumble forward. How strange, she thought. She had many a minion in her inventory, yet so few ever acted with so much freewill. The only one she could bring to mind that would do so was one that she received from Tataru many moons ago. 

The small mimicry of Ardbert that stood in front of her was nothing more than that: a machina made to interpret his likeness as something cute and harmless. If only that was the truth in the end. If only the people of Norvrandt knew what had truly happened to Ardbert, the journey that his body and soul each went on. Or rather, would that Raine had the courage to say such things herself.

The mammet walked up to her again and hit her boot with a nub of a hand. She kept staring at it, eyes half-closed and brows furrowed. Her face nestled in the palm of her right hand kept her from falling forwards. Her left hand reached forward and gently pat the top of the mammet’s head. 

She blinked once and her shoulders drooped. “If only that was really you,” she mumbled. Her fingers ruffled his messy hair. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do much to save you, buddy.”

The little automaton looked up and reached for her wrist, looking to be annoyed by her actions of petting his head. She kept petting absentmindedly. Her thoughts were elsewhere, digging through her memories of the past few months. With each traumatic one that passed by the front of her mind, she winced. Be they bloody corpses at her feet that she needed to drag to their graves, or the light bile that spilled from her mouth and splattered against the floor of her room, or the awful sounds of crystal growing through the skin of her dear friend. Each one made her heart sink further and further into despair. 

It grabbed a hold of her wrist and stopped her hand from petting him further. Raine flinched and looked back down. It was staring at her again. Staring directly at her face. Her bright green eye on her right. And the pitifully pale void of white on her left. 

It let go of her wrist again and looked around. Raine slowly pulled her hand back towards her body and rubbed her skin with her other hand. The feeling was odd. As if that mammet knew what it was doing when it had grabbed her. As if it knew who it looked like, and how much it would’ve meant to her if she actually could’ve touched his hand. 

She huffed and shook her head, sending her white fringed bangs flying. Raine stood back up, letting her armor rattle in the wind, and grabbed a hold of the shovel again. She turned back to the hole in the ground and dug the metal into the dirt, further prying loose the rocks and grime beneath her heels. 

The girl’s tail twitched with each rock she managed to pry out of the ground. She angrily huffed and snorted whenever she couldn’t get a shovelful of dirt. But she kept working on it. All the while, the small Ardbert mammet kept pacing around the grave and looking further and further down at the Warrior of Darkness. 

She’d worked for a good 30 minutes before finally pushing the tip of the shovel back into the ground and wiped her forearm over her head. She looked up and saw she had sunk beneath the edge of the grave. The mammet was looking down at her from where it stood. 

Her ears tilted back and she reached her hands up over the side of the hole, grabbing onto the grassy edges and sticking the tips of her boots into the dirt wall inside. She hauled herself over the edge and rolled onto her hide, sitting on the edge of the hole with her boots dangling inside. 

The mammet walked up to her again. She gave it a side-eyed glance while heaving, pushing on her legs to keep her body from falling forwards. The minion glanced at her arm and suddenly tapped it. She felt it’s strange nudge on her skin and squinted. 

“Like you were any help doing this crap…” She nudged it back, making it stumble a few ilms. “Couldn’t drag poor Ryne out here to help me, so of course I gotta do it alone.”

Raine stood up and looked down at the empty hole. It was dark as soon as you passed the edges, making it seem like a bottomless drop. Perhaps that was wishful thinking, for it to be such. No one should ever have to find what she’d bury here anyways. 

She turned away and trekked past the mound of dirt that she’d made. Behind it, the very thing she’d teleported with and dragged across Kholusia: something covered in a white tarp laying in the grass and flowers.

As she approached, her footsteps slowed. Raine kept her eyes on the white cloth as it flapped in the wind, threatening to expose what was beneath. There was no avoiding this now. She’d dragged him all the way out here, to his hometown and past his old family home. The least she could do was finally put him to rest in the place where he wanted to die. 

_ Just get it over with, it won’t be so bad. _

__ The mystel took in one more deep breath. Then let the feeling soak through her limbs. Quivering and shaking as they were, she forced herself to step forward and kneel down. Her gloved hands slipped beneath the tarp and what it encased, pulling it into her arms and close to her chest. The sound of metal scraping came from beneath, as well as loose parts of knocking against each other as she hauled the heavy thing into her arms. 

Who would’ve thought a century old corpse would be so heavy?

_ It’s probably just the armour.  _

__ “Maybe…” she muttered in response.

Raine stepped back across the grass and flowers, crumpling a few beneath her boots as she did. She came back to the edge of the hole in the ground and looked at the white tarp in her arms. At what was laying beneath it. 

She knelt down next to the crater in the earth and gently placed the body on the floor. Her green and white eyes fixed on the form hidden beneath it, mind filled with endlessly pleading thoughts that this wasn’t where the story would end. But reality was a bitter truth best faced sooner. And she’d had plenty of time to mourn.

Raine’s fingers latched onto the white fabric and she pulled it away, unfolding what was beneath. His freshly stained armor was still a deep black underneath the red hues. His limbs slack at his sides and bent at slightly awkward angles. His hair, once a fair shade of light brown, was growing darker and more messy than she’d ever seen it. And his skin, which used to be of fair complexion, had become pale and sunk into his skeleton more than ever. 

Ardbert was a decomposing corpse now. Finally rid of the devil that haunted his flesh, it had no soul inside to keep it alive. It hadn’t even been dead for long, yet it was already starting to turn back into the rotting soil that it should’ve stayed as. 

_ It’s for the best. _

__ Raine nodded. That’s true, she thought. It was doing no one favors by letting the Ascian inhabit the borrowed body. 

She glanced at his armor again and spotted her dried blood on his hands and chestplate. Where Elidibus had mercily grabbed her and held her in a chokehold. The axe resting next to the body looked so familiar to the very same one that Ardbert had wielded in the Source. It had carved a painful new wound into her beautiful face and left her eye blinded for the rest of her days. 

Raine sighed and lifted her left hand to touch the scar. It had been bandaged before, but the wound was already closed. It merely stung from time to time when the wind blew too hard or the sweat and tears were too much. 

_ Sorry that happened. I wish I could’ve done something. _

__ The mystel shook her head. No, she thought. You already did enough. This wasn’t your doing. 

The mammet approached again. Something flared up in her heart as she remembered it’s two previous interruptions and she wanted to shove the damn thing away. She didn’t need it to ruin her final mourning for a dear friend with something as stupid as a bap on the face. 

But Raine did not move, nor lift a finger. The small minion in Ardbert’s likeness approached that which it was reflected from. It seemed to stare at the deteriorating body, contemplating what it saw. For a moment, Raine wondered if it was even capable of that kind of thought process, of recognizing what it was next to. Who it looked like, and why Raine never got rid of it despite the pain it brought her aching heart. 

She watched the damn thing touch Ardbert’s face uselessly. He did not jostle nor twitch. He did not take a breath. His heart had long since fallen silent. Raine had already tried what it was doing now. She tried shaking his dead body and getting his soul to wake up. She wailed on his chestplate for an hour before the Scions pulled her away and treated her wounds. She screamed at the sky, ‘why is it so unfair,’ why she had lost not just the Exarch, but Ardbert’s last chance, too.

She wanted to swat the thing away for trying to mock her and do what she could not.

_ I think you’re being a bit harsh to the poor thing. It didn’t do anything to you. _

__ The girl kept glaring at it. But did not act on her selfish desires.

“I know,” she mumbled. Her head dipped and eyes fell back on the body and weapon in front of her. “It’s just a dumb mammet anyways.”

Something twitched out of the corner of her right eye. Something bright in contrast to the dark sky that was stretching over their heads.  _ “It’s got a mind of its own, clearly.” _

__ Raine gave her attention to the ghost that was kneeling next to her. His image was an exact replica of the one that was decomposing at her feet. But his skin was not sunken into his face, nor was he as pale. His armor was a bright red and axe clean of all of his sins. 

She blinked once, recognizing Ardbert from her dreams and memories that didn’t belong to her. Then she looked from Ardbert’s ghostly image to the mammet tapping his body’s face.

“That’s not bothering you? At all?” she pointed towards the odd behavior of the automaton. “If I was a corpse, I wouldn’t want someone’s minion pulling on my face while I was getting buried.”

Ardbert looked at his small minion-self and smirked, _ “I think it’s just exploring. It doesn’t know what my body is. I doubt it even knows what  _ it i _ s.” _

__ “But it should have more decency than this!” She grabbed a hold of the thing’s arm and pulled it away. It stumbled towards her on its stubby legs and spun around, looking up at its master. And unknowingly, the ghostly image that resided in her very soul.

“Don’t do that,” she said in a stern voice. “That’s my friend’s body. I don’t appreciate you messing with it.” 

She grabbed the mammet by the “scruff” of its armor, or what was supposed to be the soft furs that would cover its shoulders and neck. It plopped down in the dirt behind her and stumbled for a second to regain its balance. 

Ardbert’s spirit watched Raine pull the rest of the white fabric away and throw it to the side. The cloth fluttered down in the wind, leaving just the body and the axe resting on the dirt. She got on one knee and dropped down into the hole in the ground. Turned on her heel and reached over the edge, pushing her arms beneath Ardbert’s heavy body. She looked at his slack-jawed face for a few seconds. Then started to pull it over the edge of the grave, towards her body.

As it fell against her chest and all the weight made her knees bend, there was an awkward sound of metal scraping rocks. She looked up to Ardbert’s spirit, who was watching the mammet. She had left his bloody weapon on the soil, and now the mammet had decided to mess with it.

Raine hissed, “Hey! Leave that alone!” She struggled while holding the body in her arms.

The mammet flinched and backed away, letting the axe’s handle drop back against the rocks. She stared at it like a mother scolding her child before turning back to the job at hand. Ardbert’s ghost stayed seated on the edge of the hole, sitting on one knee and looking between the mammet of himself and the axe it tried to pick up.

The mystel bent down and carefully placed the body flat on the ground. She did her best to straighten out his legs and folded his arms over his chest like was custom with burials back in the Source. But upon standing up and observing her work, she didn’t think she’d done a good job.

Ardbert peered over the edge of the hole and watched her move his dead limbs about like he was a ragdoll. It was almost humorous, especially when seeing how emotionless his body was now that it didn’t have a soul inside. How his face didn’t so much as twitch at the discomfort of someone toying with his limbs. He wanted to laugh, in some sick and twisted way. Perhaps that was just the kind of person he was now: someone driven mad by all the things he’d gone through, so mad that he’d laugh at his own disfigured corpse. 

But as he was going to laugh, he heard another clunk of metal. He glanced to his left and saw the mammet was, once again, at it and trying to move his axe. This time, it had picked up the whole shaft of the weapon, but could hardly get it more than an ilm off the ground.

Raine’s head popped up from the edge of the hole and she bared her fanged teeth. “I said to stop that!” She raised her hand up and pushed the mammet away again. But this time, it clung tight to the axe and dragged the weapon with it. And before she could grab the axe, it had been dragged away from Raine’s reach.

Ardbert watched the girl curse under her breath, a curse that he’d heard clearly despite her best attempt to be quiet, and pry herself out of the hole in the ground. The mammet started trying to run off with the axe, but was hopelessly slow with its tiny legs. 

Raine grabbed hold of the axe’s blade and hauled it into the air. The mammet clung on for dear life and hugged the shaft of the weapon. Raine stared at the mischievous little thing and tried to shake it off. When that didn’t work, she flicked it a few times. But it only clung tighter.

“Let go, damn it!” she yelled. She grabbed a hold of the thing’s limbs and did her best to pry them off, but it  _ stuck  _ to that axe for its own life. 

Ardbert couldn’t idly watch her struggle and stood up. He didn’t block out the sun, despite standing between Raine and the fading light. Rather it slipped through his translucent skin and made him harder to see.

_ “Let it have the axe, it’s just having some fun.” _

Raine growled and huffed, rasping out the words, “It’s not supposed to act like this!”

Ardbert’s shoulders dropped and he took a tiny step backwards. 

“It’s supposed to listen to me and do what I want. And what I  _ want  _ is to give my friend the proper burial he deserves!” She pulled on the thing’s tiny limbs. “And I can’t do that unless I have…” She pried extra hard. “...the weapon!”

The small thing popped off the axe’s handle and hit the ground beneath her feet. It bounced once and rolled onto its back, staring straight up. 

Ardbert looked at the axe, then the mammet again. His brows furrowed and he raised a translucent hand, as if to ask a question. But Raine had already turned around and was lowering herself into the grave. 

She breathed in and out twice, very loudly. And with careful hands, she began to lower the axe towards Ardbert’s decaying body. At least, she would’ve done that if a little minion hadn’t leaped over the gap and grabbed a hold of Raine’s head.

The girl’s eyes widened and she shrieked, the axe in her arms falling loose in her flailing arms. The tiny minion grabbed hold of one of her cat-like ears and tugged on the silver earring that pierced the tip of it. She yelled again and swatted at the mammet with a hand, trying to alleviate her pain. But the axe lost it’s support and banged  _ hard  _ against the bottom of the grave, partially falling onto Ardbert’s body.

Raine stumbled backwards and her back hit the dirt wall. In one angry motion, she grabbed hold of the mammet and it’s maniacal hand and unlatched it from her ear. She sniffled and blinked a few tears out of her eyes, pulling the tiny thing in front of her face. “Why the hell are you doing that?!”

The mammet struggled in her grasp, flailing it’s stubby arms around and reaching desperately for the axe.

Raine glanced down at the weapon then back up, “That is not yours! That belongs to my friend and it’s going to stay here with him!”

It still kept struggling and eventually got loose of her grip, When Raine tried to grab it again before it could jump down, it thwacked her other wrist with its own little axe and she felt the sting of fake metal shoot through the nerves in her arm.

Raine squeaked and pulled her wrist close, rubbing it with her other hand. She watched the mammet drop down and grab a hold of the axe handle again, tugging it. 

Her ears flattened against her skull and she took a deep breath. “Fine, then! If you want the axe so badly, then you’d be happy to be buried with it, right?!”

She watched the tiny mammet struggle to drag the axe across Ardbert’s limp leg. The sight was starting to sicken her. How it moved the weapon and it thus moved his limb. There was no more life in that body, it should be allowed to rest, undisturbed by a dumb piece of machinery like this.

The girl sighed and started to turn back towards the edge of the wall, to pull herself back up and push the pile of dirt back into place. Finally give Ardbert the burial he deserved and just let the mammet go with him. It must’ve been faulty to act out so much.

I don’t even want it anyways, she thought to herself, her arms hesitating to pull her up. I don’t need something that looks like him to walk around and taunt me like this.

_ “Raine, wait.” _

__ She heard his ghostly voice from above and glanced up to see Ardbert kneeling at the edge of the grave, on the side opposite from where she was climbing. She could hardly see him against the setting sun. But his form was slowly getting easier to see as the sky turned more blue.

_ “It wants the axe, that’s it. Let it have it.” _

__ Raine’s heart dropped in her chest. She choked on her own breath and looked from the axe to Ardbert and again. “But it’s yours! It deserves to be put to rest with you-!”

_ “But it’s trying to bring the axe to you.” _

__ Raine paused and looked back down at the mammet. It was still tugging on the axe’s handle. But it was tugging it  _ towards  _ Raine. Ilm by ilm, it moved across Ardbert’s broken and damaged armor until the mammet had gotten the very tip of the handle to rest on Raine’s right boot. 

“I…” She was lost for words. “I can’t-”

She looked back up, expecting to see Ardbert standing above her again, looking down at her pitiful mourning. But he had jumped down into the grave. He didn’t give a care for his body that he walked right over and instead paced up to Raine.

_ “You can. It’s trying to give you what rightfully belongs to you,”  _ Ardbert leaned closer towards her, leaving a few ilms of space between their faces. 

“That’s not  _ my  _ axe though. I don’t use an axe, I use a sword and a shield,” she gestured to the weapon and the mammet on the floor. "I barely know the first thing about wielding a weapon like that… and it wouldn't be right for me to start with yours."

His translucent and bright hands wrapped around hers, and strangely enough, she could feel it. He was cold to the touch, but she could feel the leather gloves on his palms and his strong grip beneath that. She stared at his hands, then slowly shifted her gaze up to his somber face.

_ “Well, it doesn’t belong to me anymore.”  _ he hugged her hands tightly.  _ “But seeing as I was the last owner of that bloody weapon, I should decide who next inherits it.” _

__ Raine felt her hands being pulled downwards. Ardbert began to kneel, dropping to his right knee. Raine fell on her left, mimicking Ardbert's movement. He placed her palms on the shaft of the axe, curling her fingers around the metal. It felt just as cold as his ghostly touch. 

“Ardbert, I can’t take this. It’s not right,” she stared down at the weapon.

_ “I want you to have it though. You may not use it often, or at all. But it’s one of the last pieces of me left in this world. And I want you to take it with you to the Source.”  _

__ She looked over at Ardbert. “You don’t want us to put it on display here, in the First?”

Ardbert scoffed.  _ “And let  _ it  _ take up the glory of Norvrandt while the Exarch’s body collects dust in the Crystal Tower? No, I would rather not.”  _ He smiled despite the awful comments.  _ “My grave alone is likely to attract attention once people realize I’m buried out here. And you’ve already done a good job of telling my story. I doubt anyone would be willing to tear it apart and deliver our bodies to Eulmore again.”  _

__ “I suppose…if that's what you want,” Raine sighed. “And Cyella is still around. She could tell the stories, too,” the mystel gave a half-hearted smile, letting her hands feel the axe and pull it into her arms. 

Ardbert gave a stupid grin and stood up, letting Raine take the axe by herself.  _ “See, you’ve already got it!” _

__ Raine stood with him and clutched the axe tight. She smirked and stared at him with her blind eye. “You’re acting oddly chipper for someone that watched their body get laid to rest.” 

__ _ “Sometimes you need to find happiness in the little things. Even if it’s hollow, it's still something to fight for. Otherwise, you won’t be fighting for anything in the end.” _

__ __ The girl latched the axe onto her back and started climbing out of the grave, with a mammet on her shoulder, leaving the old body behind. But the soul followed her, hauling himself out of the grave just after Raine did. She felt some spark of happiness watching him do the same. “You promise to give me sage old advice like that if you’re gonna stick with me for the rest of time?”

He snorted, as if her request was a joke.  _ “If I can ever think of stuff like that again, I’ll tell you.” _

Ardbert and Raine stood up straight and looked down in the grave. Besides the glints of damaged and crippled armor, it was impossible to tell what was at the bottom of that hole. 

_ “It’s for the best.” _

__ They both flinched and jerked their heads to look at the other. They’d both said the exact same thing. It was jarring and made them both shy away in embarrassment. 

While Ardbert stood by, he watched as Raine picked up the shovel again. And with only a final glimpse at the body at the bottom of the crater, she started pouring dirt back over it.

Ardbert didn’t watch his own skin get buried. He kept his eyes ahead, staring at the horizon. The sun was just about to disappear behind the ocean’s waves. The wind was kicking up again. Though it hardly affected him, he saw Raine’s distraught as she tried to shovel the dirt with her hair blowing in her face and her coat flying all over.

She started missing where the dirt was going, too. And huffed with each missed toss.

Ardbert snickered to himself, watching her try at the task.

Raine’s ears twitched and she looked up at the bright ghostly image. “What’s so funny?”

Ardbert crossed his arms.  _ “Nothing. Keep going.” _

She squinted at the ghost, but kept working nonetheless, getting more and more precise with each shovel throw.

As she kept working, Ardbert sat down on the ground, as much as a ghost could. He couldn’t feel the ground beneath his intangible body, but it held him aloft. The sun had disappeared and the last of the orange sky was vanishing quickly after. It was getting darker, and his illuminated form became their only light source. 

There was another tap and the sound of a whirring cog. He glanced to his right and saw the mammet sitting on the ground, in a similar position to him: legs crossed and hands planted on the ground behind him. 

Ardbert stared at the mammet of himself. He wondered, for a moment, how such a device came to be. But the memory came to him as fast as it would have come to Raine (such was the benefit of sharing a soul): they were made by several advocates for the Warriors of Light and their innocence in causing the flood. Something that he appreciated in the moment, but couldn’t help but see the ridiculous nature in now. 

Raine thought it was a bit too silly at the time. She silently scolded the people who made them for thinking that the tiny mammets alone would do well to inspire more generations to believe the truth. But when she was handed one by the Exarch himself, she accepted it with a heavy heart and doubtful thoughts in mind. It was one of the last things she got from the Exarch before their fight against Elidibus.

Ardbert knew full well why she hesitated to take it. It was hard not to know the girl’s inner mechanisms at this point, he was forced to live vicariously through her, after all. But Ardbert still wished to hear Raine say the words on her own, without him reading her heart like an open book.

Raine stuck the shovel tip in the ground once more. She’d moved almost the entire dirt pile back in place. But she was sweating and heaving for air, dark skin tainted red and turning colder in the night air. She’d overworked herself for certain.

_ “Tired?” _

__ “Yeah,” she plopped down next to Ardbert, putting the mammet between them. 

_ “Would you mind a conversation while you rest?” _

__ “Not at all, go ahead.”

_ “How come you hate the minion?” _

__ Raine’s ears stuck straight up for one second, then fell behind her head the next. She didn’t try making eye contact with Ardbert and instead remained silent, a thousand thoughts running through her head that Ardbert did his best to ignore in favor of her own,  _ verbal _ words.

“I don’t  _ hate  _ it,” she muttered.

__ _ That was a lie. _

“I just think it could be….improved.”

_ “How so?” _

__ The fur on her tail rose. “Y’know… make it actually look like you.”

_ “I think it looks pretty accurate.” _

__ “Well….sure, for a mammet but, it’s not…” Her shoulders slumped and Raine lost her train of thought.

_ “It’s not quite right?” _

"It's missing something," she replied much too fast.

_ "What would that be?" _

She shuddered once and kept her gaze averted. Her blind eye shifted about, as if looking for something that it would not see. "I-I dunno, but it's not quite…"

_ "What makes you feel it's missing something?"  _ Ardbert glanced at the minion and saw a very simplified 'self,' but recognizable nonetheless.

"Because it...it doesn't act like you," she clutched her fingers into her palms. 

_ "What's 'acting like me' supposed to be?" _

She blinked, frantically looking for an answer. "Compassionate… Understanding and always willing to give advice… you're sweet and kind and you don't go prying on my ears when I do something you don't want me to."

He was ready to say something, but Raine kept on talking.

"A minion isn't the same as the person that made it, or who it was made to look like, I know that. But I feel like they could've tried a little harder to make it more accurate. Asked Cyella or I some questions about you, or…"

Her words drifted away from her. The dark skin around her face was no longer red from exhaustion, but a pinkish color. 

_ "Because it's not me." _

__ Her heart hammered once, very loudly in her chest. “Of course it’s not you, it’s a dumb minion. I can’t expect it to  _ be you  _ since you’re…as you are now.”

Raine clasped her hands and her thumbs brushed the backs of her palms. Her gaze drifted towards everything except for the company to her left. “I don’t see every midlander with brown hair and think,  _ ‘Oh, that’s Ardbert!’  _ I’m not crazy, nor do I expect such wishes to be fulfilled after you disappeared. Gods know I was praying you’d come back, I’m so lonely as it is, but you're a fever dream that I was hoping would-”

She flinched and her eyes popped open. Her hands covered her mouth and she turned her head completely away. 

He could feel the girl's embarassment and practically hear her panicked thoughts. Ardbert kept staring. He hadn’t said a thing to her. She simply confessed on her own.

_ “You’re lonely?” _

Raine started shuddering, still clasping her mouth with her hands and staring at anything that wasn’t Ardbert. Her voice quivered behind her hands, knees knocking where she sat. 

_ “You’re lonely and it was me that you missed.” _

__ She felt a cold touch on her shoulder and glanced down to spot his hand. 

_ “I’m...I’m sorry that I caused you to feel alone. That was never my intention.” _

__ “I know,” Raine mumbled out, still shaking.

_ “I just finally had someone to talk to after all these years. I’m sorry if my silence caused you any distress after the fight with Emet-Selch. But I...I wasn’t quite sure what to do either.” _

She felt her body being pulled and she finally turned her head to face him. 

_ “But I won’t leave you alone again, I promise,”  _ Ardbert tugged on her arm this time, pulling her closer. _ “I’m not gonna be the most helpful companion, but you’ll always have me to talk to when there’s no one else to confide in. Hells, I might be one of the few people who’ll always understand what you’re going through.” _

__ Raine let herself sink towards his body, into a gentle hug. He gently pet some of the strands of hair on the back of her head. And she tried, as best she could, to find warmth in this chilling hug that she shouldn't have been able to feel.

“Thank you for that,” she mumbled. “I appreciate it.” 

The hug held for a few more seconds, and they each began to wonder if the other was supposed to pull away first. Luckily, neither had to answer. Because the mammet decided to do something instead.

The small look-alike jumped between Raine and Ardbert and latched onto the girl’s chest. She squeaked in surprise and pulled away quickly, letting the two both stare at the thing that was clutching around her neck. It’s tiny hands struggled to keep a grip on her skin, but it was trying to hug her nonetheless.

Ardbert snickered to himself as Raine gently pulled the thing off her body and set it down on the ground between them both. But before Ardbert could comment on the strange behavior, the doll jumped again and this time, clung to her shoulder.

Raine didn’t fall back, but she did grab hold of the doll and hold its arms on her shoulder, to ensure it wouldn’t fall off. She gave a small smile to the doll, growing a little more appreciation for its wanton actions.

“Strange, isn’t it?” She smiled while letting out a cheap laugh.

_ “It’s almost like it’s trying to copy me.” _

__ Raine smiled at the notion. But her smile vanished and she whipped her head back around to look at Ardbert’s posture. He was sitting cross-legged with both hands resting on his knees. 

She glanced back at the doll and pulled it off her shoulder. It stumbled on the ground for one or two steps, before turning back around and looking up at Raine. As if waiting for an order.

Raine said nothing and studied the mammet intently. After hearing nothing from her at all, the mammet seemed to shrug and decided to sit down. Between her and Ardbert. Cross-legged with both hands resting on its knees. 

They both observed the same thing. Raine and Ardbert looked to each other and then back down at the mammet. She said nothing to the small machina. But Ardbert decided to call on it.

_ “Hey, look at me," the ghost said. _

__ As if the request came from a living and breathing person, the doll turned to Ardbert and looked straight up at his face. 

They both blinked, staring with mouths open and eyes wide.

“It heard you.”

_ “It can see me, too.” _

__ “How can it…?” 

She cut herself off. The Exarch had given her this doll. She didn’t pay attention if he’d done anything to it whatsoever, it was just handed to her and... what had the Exarch said?

_ “He said, ‘I hope you enjoy this. We made it as best we could in his image,’”  _ Ardbert answered her lingering thoughts. 

Raine kept staring, unblinking. 

“You...” she mumbled. “Did he actually find a way to…?” Raine’s hand pressed against the front of her head and her fingers dragged through her hair. Ardbert kept looking from her to the doll and back again. 

“When all was said and done… he had a favor to ask of me.”

Raine reached for her bag sitting in the dirt nearby. She reached inside and found another doll of near identical mechanism, but it had reddish-white hair and blue crystal growing on its limbs. 

She sniffled once and kept staring at the doll. One of her hands covered her mouth and she felt her body heat up. Something she’d been trying to hold back started spilling out. Tears over both her cheeks. A few broken sobs from her throat. 

Ardbert reached over and tried to comfort her. He grabbed her shoulders (the mammet tried to do the same) and looked down at the doll she was clutching to her chest. It was coated in small robes, the ears twitching as she hugged it tighter and tighter. A small staff in its crystal palm and a tail hidden beneath it’s robes. 

“That  _ bastard, _ ” she rasped out in-between sobs. “That magnificent, obnoxious,  _ lovable  _ bastard...”

**Author's Note:**

> in case you couldn't tell
> 
> i choose to interpret the exarch's closing lines as him imbuing his will into the two new minions that were released with 5.3
> 
> and i dont care how you interpret this, i ship them both at this point


End file.
